Love & Folly in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night - Essay Sample

Introduction

It is evident that during Shakespeare's era, people wanted to attend the theatre and be able to relax and laugh. Most individuals loved all plays with an element of tragi-comedy, exemplified by characters who were often in a romantic relationship. Other characters were seen as foolish like Malvolio in the Twelfth Night. The aspects of love and folly are primary motifs that are seen in most of Shakespeare's plays, and in particular the Twelfth Night there are a lot of examples that will be highlighted to support the main subject.

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Shakespeare comedy links to love and folly in Twelfth Night in different ways. It uses characters to express how they foolishly fall in love. For instance, the character of Malvolio explicitly shows how the folly of ambition is expressed. Malvolio is a steward who has tremendous ambitions. The problem of social ambition best applies to him; this is seen when Maria forges a letter from Olivia. The letter makes him believe that Olivia is in love; he even wants to marry her. The play uses characters such as Sir Toby to make the situation hysterical and funny not only because Malvolio is not from the noble class but because he has an unattractive personality. Malvolio portrays his foolishness by wanting to marry a woman who they have not even agreed. Additionally, Shakespeare's comedy expounds that a noblewoman would not sully marry a man from a lower class.

In the same parallel, the atmosphere of the play, "the Twelfth Night" renders Malvolio's ambitions irrational. Malvolio seems not to embrace the upending order of social class status (Berry and Berry 50). However, it is important to note that the feast of the Twelfth Night, where the play got its name represents a time when the hierarchies were turned upside down. That means, Malvolio's antagonism represents the same spirit but Maria turns his aspirations down by marrying Sir Toby. She increases her social standing and from this, her success followed as a result of accepting and promoting Sir Toby's anarchy. The Twelfth Night spirit passes Malvolio due to the fact that he is concerned about his personal gain other than toppling the order and decorum of social class.

Malvolio is unaware of himself; he has sexual ambiguity and this makes it difficult to understand whether he is a boy or a man. Malvolio sees nothing more than the physical appearance of Viola (Berry and Berry 57). On the same hand, Viola also seems to be psychologically ambiguous; she commits herself to time. Their ambiguity becomes comical and maddening and as Shakespeare puts it, youth is a time of love. Love and madness appear more often, but all these are always one. Love, at first sight, is an enchantment because there is a time when love works for magic.

Also, from Orsino and Viola's argument about how women and men behave when they are in love, a concept of disguise and deception is brought out. Viola says that "In faith, women are as true as a heart". Viola stands to protect women due to the difficulties she experienced while in Ilyria. She was a young woman who could be vulnerable to sexual assault but she discovered that she could be safer if she disguised as a man. However, she finds out that the cost of maintaining a disguise, but since she cannot correct her mistakes, she offers to betray her secret. This exposes her to serious difficulties something that made Orsino believe that Cesario had stolen her from him. As per Shakespeare's comedy, this is a time when women were expected to follow rules of social decorum but from the play, it is clear that disguise can serve as a positive purpose.

There is also a concept of romanticism were high ranking women like Olivia falls for her employee. Love and desire strike suddenly and unpredictable and this renders characters helpless. Olivia is dismayed to recognize the feelings she has for Cesario. In the same parallel, Viola is also trapped with Orsino and Olivia; she even says "the knot it hard for me to untie" (Berry and Berry 169). Similarly, Malvolio starts to believe that Olivia is in love with him and this could be a dream come true because it would be a step to his destiny. Although most of the characters are taken away by the theme of love, some of them find partners at the end of the play. All these dramas add to the humor and laughter of the play.

Foolishness is again dispelled by Feste, who is acting imprudently at his job. His role is to entertain and solace fellow mates something that makes him obviously a fool. However, despite his behavior as a clown, he is a clever character in the play. For instance, in act 3, Viola highlights that Feste is wise to act like a fool (Berry and Berry 136). Therefore, since he performs his role very well, he deserves respect because he outsmarts all other characters in the play. The accurate depiction of characters such as Toby Belch is foolish due to the fact that he drinks heavily. He even marries Olivia before doing his research; he barely knew her. In relation to the works of Shakespeare, there are two kinds of fools. The first one is a natural fool and the other is an artificial fool, who is actually a professional entertainer. Sir Toby is a witty fool from the noble households, and he does it more naturally without self-awareness. When hearing the title Twelfth Night, many people construe its meaning in different ways. Some indicate that Twelfth Night is not a satiric comedy, nor is it a patchwork of absurd revelry (Schwartz 509). However, the audience feels that its meaning is equal to and relies on its festive form and feeling (Schwartz 509). They further state that it has cheerfulness and a festive feel that conveys a profound and clear vision of human life (Schwartz 509). It demonstrates a genial vision of the goodness and joy in life regardless of its shortcomings. Aside from that it creates a vision of the foolishness of men, and a full acceptance of folly, since such acceptance establishes man's ideal place in the world, erases his conceit, and makes the fullest enjoyment of life possible (Schwartz 509). The play has touched a lot on the elements of curiosity, elusiveness, and sadness, which will unfold in the ensuing paragraphs (Schwartz 509).

In the Twelfth Night, Orsino, Olivia, and Sir Toby are each foolish in their own manner. However, they are all endearing or lovable, since they never take their lives too seriously, they are redeemed by an awareness of their own pretension (Schwartz 509-510). It is this elusive nature-shared by all protagonists in the play except Sir Andrew and Malvolio, singles them out as deserving their good fortune, and guarantees that nothing bad will occur to them (Schwartz 509-510). The aspect that makes Malvolio "a villain" is not only his "pharisaical" self-centeredness, but his lack of self-awareness, or what is currently known as a sense of humor (Schwartz 509-510).

In the Twelfth Night, Shakespeare uses dramatic irony in a peculiar manner that closely relates how the aspects of love and folly unfold (Schwartz 510). Through the use of dramatic irony, Shakespeare is able to illustrate how some characters are to some extent foolish, and others to some degree tricked (Schwartz 510). Orsino is fooled by Viola, Olivia is fooled by Viola, Sebastian. Sir Toby and Fabian fool Viola. Much of the love or pleasure from the play emanates from the character's god-like knowledge of the truth of circumstances as opposed to the ignorance of the difficult aspects within the play (Schwartz 510-511). The most intriguing moment of the play is seen through an aspect of situational irony. It is seen in the fourth act when Duke (who was suspected to have started expressing his love to Cesario-Viola) sends Viola to Olivia for the first time. However, Viola refuses, claiming that she is not apt for such as commission (Schwartz 510-511).

The overall charisma of the play is dramatic, not just verbal. For example, "the "boy" informs the Duke that she loves him, and the Duke is about to disclose the true feelings she has for Viola in his estimate of the boy's value" (Schwartz 511). Shakespeare indicates that a woman of Orsino's anger is not worthy enough for Cesario. Ironically, a man of his temperament is fit enough for Viola, since she has already fallen in love with him, and aside from that his self-effacement makes him valuable (Schwartz 511). In a nutshell, Viola is quite an appealing character, however, garbed like man, in those ages meant that she would not be able to get services with Orsino as a female (Schwartz 511). When having a conversation with higher status characters, particularly Olivia, Feste almost converses the roles (Schwartz 511). The other characters hardly talk to Olivia in the same manner as Feste, though everyone must look up to her and esteem her. Olivia initiates a dialogue by telling Malvolio to "take the fool way", and Feste responds" do you hear guys? Take away the lady (Schwartz 511).

Making an assumption that Olivia loved Sebastian can be questioned. Shakespeare makes Sebastian an authentic substitute for Cesario. These two features basically seem to contradict Olivia's initial response. Olivia first stated that she wanted an androgynous youthfulness that is attractive and with muscles like Orsino (Lindheim 681). The second feature she is looking for is someone with outstanding verbal excitement (Lindheim 681). According to the first description, the audience thinks that Olivia is referring to Malvolio, who she agrees to meet since the guy displays a figure of unthreatening masculinity (Lindheim 681). On the other hand, Sebastian likes Olivia and he is willing to be engaged to her, and what draws Sebastian into liking Olivia is apparently her beauty (Traub 2-3).

Even though Sebastian may fall in love with Olivia at first glance, his reaction is rationally unraveled in soliloquy. He speaks of wonder, madness, disputes, error, addresses, and distrusting senses all accentuating his maleness rational path towards agreeing as definitive the "smooth discreet and stable bearing" in the manner she commands her family (Lindheim 684-685). Still in the play, Shakespeare does not only forget about "words" in molding a suitable character in Sebastian, as is evident in his first speeches (Lindheim 685). Olivia ends the previous scene by stating that "fate show thy force", and further states "my stars shine darkly beyond me; the malignancy of my destiny might perhaps distemper yours."

Antonio's mere request to discover his friend's destination prompts this feedback. "No smooth, sir: my determinate voyage is just extravagancy" (Lindheim 685). According to Shakespeare, Sebastian is able to incorporate several registers in the play; he commensurates Viola "lexically" and "syntactically" in the detailed recognition scene (Lindheim 685-686). However, both discriminate emotions with exquisite weakness and logically parses the madness of his encounter with Olivia. The play teases us with homoerotic charms, however, Viola's soliloquy denies that they are satisfying in either way; as a man, she alludes her love condition is desperate as she was first tricked into "narcissist" love (Lindheim 682). She gets another offer from Sebastian who is willing to remove her from the yokes of narcissism with an offer to betroth her (Lindheim 682).

Conclusion

In conclusion, there are a lot of elements of love and folly in most of Shakespeare's play, but this particular essay has delved into the Twelfth Night. In overall nature, Twelfth Night develops an apparition of the foolishness of men, and full acceptance of folly because, such acceptance creates man's ideal place in the world, erases his conceit, and makes the fullest enjoyment of life possible. In the Twelfth Night, Orsino, Olivia, and Sir Toby are each foolish in their own manner. However, they are all endearing or lovable, since they n...